Hopper buses

Hopper bus parked on University Park campus

The 糖心原创 provides subsidised hopper bus services that run between the main University Park Campus and Jubilee, Sutton Bonington and the Royal Derby Hospital.

The hopper buses use a , so if you have your university card with you, please tap the card reader machine next to the driver. If you don’t have a card, the driver will manually record your journey.

Staff and students travelling to Nottingham City Hospital are also able to travel free of charge on Medilink - simply show your University card.

Changes to hopper services from 1 August 2026

Following a comprehensive procurement exercise, Nottingham City Transport (NCT) have been appointed as the new operator of the University Hopper Bus service and will be taking over the service from Saturday 1 August.

Hopper buses will continue to be a free service for staff and students, just show your university card to the driver when boarding the bus. If you do forget your card, just let the driver know that you don’t have it with you.

The 901, 903 and 906 hopper services will continue to operate on their current term-time and vacation timetables.

Travelling to Royal Derby Hospital

Due to teaching relocating from Derby Medical School to Nottingham, the 904-hopper service between University Park and Royal Derby Hospital Centre is being withdrawn. The last day of service for the 904 will be Friday 31 July.

We understand that this will impact existing users of the service. If you still need to travel between Nottingham and Royal Derby Hospital by bus:

Use the to travel between Nottingham City Centre / QMC and Derby City Centre
Interchange at Derby Bus station for services to Royal Derby Hospital including: , ,

Hopper services during the summer vacation

903 and 904 hopper buses are now operating on their vacation timetables.

906 services do not operate in vacation periods.

The 901 operates on the same timetable year round.

901 Service update – NET Parking Enforcement at Clifton Park & Ride car park

NET (the Nottingham tram operators) are taking enforcement action (vehicle clamping with a £140 release fee) against people that are parking at Clifton Park & Ride (P&R) and catching the 901 hopper bus.

The Clifton Park & Ride car park is NOT free for Hopper bus users. Clifton P&R is a tram-based P&R which means that free parking is for tram users not bus users.

NET have advised UoN that any Hopper bus users who want to use the Clifton P&R as a car park will need to buy a day pass for the tram. Users will need to provide evidence that they have a valid tram pass for the day they are parking if challenged by NET’s car park attendants at Clifton P&R. The latest advice from NET states that if you purchase your tram pass via the NET GO app, then you can register your vehicle registration plate on the app - see the for more information.

The Hopper bus primarily stops at Clifton P&R to provide Sutton Bonington Campus with a public transport connection to the Tram which can be used to connect to Nottingham City Centre.